It was lovely up there in the slough. The big elms and maples hung over and were draped with vines, and some sweet flower was making the air sweet. There were a few mosquitoes, but we did not mind them much; we were used to them. Jibby’s father and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar sat on the bank and smoked and watched. Well, in an hour or so Wampus was away ahead of Tad and Skippy and me, like he always was at fishing, but he was fishing hard and changing his bobber every few minutes, because Jibby Jones was three fish ahead of him. “I guess he’s got a real nose for fish,” Wampus whispered to us. “He’s smelled out the best fishing-hole in this whole slough; that’s what he has. I wish I had gone there instead of here. I’m a better fisherman than he is, and I know it and you know it, and if he beats me it will just be his nose that does it.” “Then I wish I had his kind of nose,” I said, for I was so far behind that I knew I could never catch up unless I caught a whale. Just then a school of small perch must have come by, for Wampus caught four in succession. That cheered him up, but not for long, because Jibby kept right on catching. Now and then Jibby would pull a paper from his pocket and look at it, and take his pocket rule from his pocket and set his bobber different, and catch another fish. By three o’clock in the afternoon the sun was pretty hot, and even Wampus said the fish had stopped biting right, but old Jibby kept right on pulling one out now and then. When one side of his boat didn’t give him any fish, he would try the other side, but first he always sniffed to see if the fish were down there. So, after Wampus had not caught any for about half an hour, he tried smelling for fish, too. He leaned over and sniffed at the water. “Can’t smell a thing,” he said. The funny thing was that, right along through the heat of the afternoon, when fishing is the worst, Jibby kept on pulling in a fish every now and then. He hadn’t caught so many more than Wampus when the fish were biting easy, but he had kept up with him, and now, that they were not biting for Wampus, Jibby forged right ahead. “There’s no use talking, fellows,” Wampus said. “I’m convinced. Jibby can smell out the fish. He smelled out the best fishing-hole on this whole slough, and that’s all there is to it. I’ve got a chance yet, but I do wish I had a can of nice fresh lively worms.” “Yours most all gone?” Skippy asked. “No,” Wampus told him, “but they’re mighty withered, what I’ve got left. If I was a fish, I’d be ashamed to tackle such sick-looking worms.” Just about then the fish began biting again, but it looked as if they had got together and decided to help Jibby beat Wampus. Old Jibby just pulled them in as fast as he could take them off his hook, and just before five o’clock he got something on his line that acted like a ton of brick. It was only a carp, but it was a ten-pound one, and Jibby was mighty careful, and got it into the boat.